Posts Tagged: inland

News

LAO: Coastal areas should begin preparing for sea level rise

A seaside condominium complex in Monterey, facing a rising sea level. (Photo: Steve Smith, Shutterstock)

California’s coast could experience sea level rise (SLR) ranging from about half of 1 foot by 2030 up to about 7 feet by 2100. Periodic events like storms and high tides will produce even higher water levels and increase the risk of flooding. Rising seas will also erode coastal cliffs, dunes, and beaches which will affect shorefront structures and recreation.

Opinion

Air quality regulators must protect vulnerable communities

Unhealthy smoke covering San Jose in 2018, the result of wildfires. (Photo: 1000Photography, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: The impact of California’s wildfires have left residents across the state with unhealthy air that residents in the Central and Inland Valley breathe throughout the year. The American Lung Association’s 2019 “State of the Air” report shows that 11 California cities rank within the highest ozone levels or worst particulate contamination in the nation.

News

Sea level rise: California’s new reality

Pacific Ocean waves lap against beach front properties in Malibu. (Photo: Elliott Cowand Jr., via Shutterstock)

While wildfires have gotten much of the attention in California as consequences of climate change, it’s really rising sea levels that will likely wreak the most damage. With more than 25 million people living near the coast, some $150 billion worth of property is at risk.

News

Republican seats in the crosshairs

Republicans gather at a 2016 rally in Costa Mesa for GOP presidential contender Donald Trump. (Photo: Mike Ledray, via Shutterstock)

Encouraged by their Nov. 7 election victories in other states, Democrats now have even higher hopes of flipping the House in 2018, and a big factor governing whether they will succeed rests on outcomes in eight Republican-held California districts. The eight incumbent Republicans in Southern California and the Central Valley that Democrats hope to defeat a year from now make up one-third of the 24 seats needed to give Democrats control of the House.

Opinion

Memo to Brown: Affordable housing is a life and death matter

A family housing illustration by arka38, via Shutterrstock

OPINION: The same day Governor Jerry Brown delivered his proposed state budget, Barbara Brown died of exposure on a skid row street during an El Niño storm. More than the coincidence of a common last name links the two. As a literal storm killed this unfortunate woman, Gov. Brown once again ignored California’s worsening housing crisis, instead calling on the state to squirrel away $2 billion on top of required state reserves in order to save for an economic “rainy day.”

News

Coast key to state’s housing costs

Coastal housing in Laguna Beach. (Photo: John Bilous)

For decades, people living in California paid more for shelter than those in most of the rest of the country. But during the 1970s, “the gap started to widen. Between 1970 and 1980, California home prices went from 30 percent above U.S. levels to more than 80 percent higher,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported. Today, the average California home costs $440,000, or two-and-half-times the average price tag of $180,000 for a home across the country.

News

Legislature’s image on the mend?

State Capitol, Sacramento. (Photo: David Monniaux)

Is the California Legislature making a comeback? The poll numbers would certainly indicate it is, but lawmakers shouldn’t start popping the champagne corks. In fact, the legislature hasn’t had this much love since October of 2004, when 40 percent of likely voters approved and 46 percent disapproved of the legislature’s performance, according to the PPIC.

News

GOP wave hits California — gently

Voter Ben Rich casts his ballot at the Venice Beach lifeguard headquarters. (Photo: AP/Jae C. Hong)

Though the final chapter is still unwritten on Election 2014, we know this much: Republicans took advantage of a traditional dip in midterm turnout and some big spending in targeted races to pick up enough legislative seats to end Democrats’ supermajorities in both houses. The GOP picked off two Democratic Assembly incumbents – Steve Fox, D-Palmdale, and Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton — and were headed to unseat a third – Freshman Assemblyman Al Marutsuchi, D-Torrance.

News

Voters positive about state, but party, location are factors

California's Highway 1 in Marin County. (Photo: Constantine Kulikovsky)

FIELD POLL: Californians are taking a more positive view of the direction of the state than then did four years ago when near record proportions (80%) felt the state was seriously off on the wrong track. However, views about California’s overall direction vary considerably depending on where a voter lives and his or her party registration.

Opinion

State energy policies hits Inland Empire in the wallet

OPINION:When it comes to attracting investment and creating stable communities through good-paying jobs, the Inland Empire has been dealt some good cards, and some bad cards. Too often, what comes out of Sacramento falls into the latter category.

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